warren dean

Not much argument from me. Only problem is, if this is a fairly shallow draft, how do we replace all of them. Seven picks in a crap draft is probably not a great strategy!

Riley = never played at the highest level; assistant for a number of years; 3 finals appearances Bond = a distinct lack of success over a 160 game playing career at Carlton, Richmond and Fremantle; an assistant at the Dogs since 02; 1 finals appearance. McKenna = a glittering playing career including 2 flags; a very poor record as an assistant with the WCE (no finals appearances); a poor record as coach of Claremont; 1 finals appearance as an assistant at Collingwood in four years. Connolly = no finals as a player; an iffy record with the Dockers (2 finals in 6 seasons) Sheedy = 3 flags as a player; 4 as a coach; has developed plenty of other senior coaches (Williams, Pagan, Harvey, Thompson, Daniher etc). Surely this could not be a difficult decision. If that is the shortlist then this is a no-brainer!

Great work, Condemned! A shocking first half, papered over by a tired performance by the Pies in the 2nd half. The anti-Johnstone faction that operate here need to realise that it was his ability to use the ball that kept us vaguely in the game in the first half, and then got us right into it in the second half. I can't believe the way some posters treat TJ in comparison to some others who seem to get off lightly. Also, a very disappointing crowd. Only 46,000 for one of the more important moments in our clubs history. The sooner Sheedy arrives to get this place moving again the better!

Nathan Jones is eerily similar to former Collingwood player Tony Francis. He is hard it, has great endurance but invariably tries to take on everybody all the time! His first instinct is to move backwards (towards his own goal) whenever he gets the ball, and I doubt I've seen a player who loves a U-turn more! He is an exceptional young player and has many fine qualities, but he must look at this aspect of his game. Brock McLean is having a bad patch atm, mainly due to injury, but as Dirty harry would say, "A man's got to know his limitations". Geddy Lee, you are right about Brock, he isn't quick and like Jones, often tries to beat two or three opponents. Good ball winners like Sam Mitchell, and before him, Greg Williams rarely get caught holding the ball because they dish it off straight awaywith super vision. Brock needs to be better at finding and taking that option. They were both culpable in this area. Footy is a game of winning the ball and disposing of it correctly.

Just having a quick look at the poll results and Sheeds really is the supporters choice. Ratten and Voss both had some support but they are now out of the race. Any idea as to who the shortlisted 5 will be - Hutchy said on the Footy Show last night that Sheedy was a definite to make the list. I assume Bond and Connolly will fill 2 of the places. Who else?

North, South or the Lions for me. Can't stand the Hawks after '87 and '88; Geelong would shatter the September "choke" tag and I couldn't stand that; WCE and PA - just don't like them! I love the way North go about it - the best result in terms of performance V ability in the league; and great admiration for the Swans who have pulled together a number of very different personalities to develop a brilliant footy culture! I just like watching the way the Lions have played in the last few weeks.

Just wondering if anybody knows about this one. I know the qualification period is 10 years for players - big Al qualified last year event though he didn't play a game. I assume it would be the same for coaches, but would Neale still qualify even though he didn't actually complete his tenth season? I certainly hope that he does. Nobody has given more to the Demons since 1997!

Two quality MFC people. Neale was great for this club and continues to be.

Connolly was, is and always will be a Melbourne man. He is not, however, the right man to lead the Demons into the future. In only 2 of his 5 completed seasons did he do better than 50-50, and clearly, the last 4 weeks has shown his shortcomings as a coach. With essentially the same players who could only win 6 from 15, Mark Harvey has got the Dockers back in contention, and against reasonable opposition as well. 3 from 4 with the only loss being against Geelong is just as damning for Connolly as his own performance as coach. The MFC will not appoint Connolly - not when Sheedy is also available!

Without doubt still the best man for the job. The Bombers have dropped a couple, but of the assistants in the running - notably Bond and McKenna - their sides have gone even worse, losing to the bottom 2 sides! The good news for those anti-Connolly people out there is that Freo's renewed vigour is a good indication that Connolly will be out of calculations for the Demon's job.

Round 22 1996 - the merger game. The Hawks were playing for a spot in the 8. He played a blinder - 6 goals on Langford and nearly got us over the line. We lost by a point but still just about the best game I have seen for the emotion of it all.

If Sheedy gets the job the Byronator will not only be safe, he will be inspired!

That article is a very interesting read! It seems Steve Harris may well be in for a bumpy ride!

I wonder how the records of the prospective coaches stack up? When we appointed ND, he had been an assistant to Sheedy (played a large role in the 1993 premiership by cracking Carlton's centre square strategy) and Neesham (helping to establish the Dockers). He had been involved in premierships. I am looking at the current lot and the most commonly mentioned are Bond, Ratten, McKenna, as well as a couple of more experienced and well known identities in Sheedy and Connolly. The records of the three assistants really isn't that flash. McKenna is in his fourth year at Collingwood and the Pies have not been very successful in that time ( finishes of 13, 15 and 7 in completed seasons). He was also an assistant at WCE in the Judge era ( hopeless) and coached Claremont in the WAFL without much success. Ratten seemed to develop a reputation assisting at Melbourne in 2004, but I really wonder how successful he was - we lost five consecutive games at the end of that season and our midfield was pretty soft - hence the decision to go after Moloney. He coached in the EDFL (Norwood made the GF last year) and then back to Carlton to this year. Once again, not a very successful involvement. Bond first coached in 2001 at Werribee and they made the finals in 2002. From then on was Peter Rhode's match day assistant and has since worked under Eade. In that time only one finals appearance (last year). Bond has little playing experience in terms of finals, while Ratten and McKenna played in 3 flags between them in the early 90's. Two of the three were overlooked by the Saints last year. I keep coming back to the view that Sheeds is our man. Involvement in a flag far more recently than any of these current assistants; a huge profile; and aura that can't be disputed and a record to rival the greats. He still has the fire in the belly. I've heard some people say he would be a risk. I believe he would be a much safer bet than taking the punt on an untried rookie who really doesn't have a lot of substance in their CV.

Get Sheedy and build a club. Three years of passion, excitement, enthusiasm. Build a membership to 35,000 plus. Show supporters what it means to be a part of something exciting that builds over those three years to a premiership! Make the MFC the heart of the competition! Sheedy should be the shortlist!

With the right coach we have the ability to bounce back into contention fairly quickly. Trading away any of our top players would ensure that the bounce doesn't happen. How many of you remember 1997, when we only won 4 games and finished with the spoon, only to make the prelim final in 1998. In 97 there were calls to trade everyone (including Viney, who ended up winning the BF and making All Australian in 98). The only player of note we ended up moving on was Sean Charles to Carlton. We stuck with our better, experienced players and developed some great young players (McDonald, Leoncelli, Farmer, Robertson, Yze etc) and had a great year. For those,names substitute Davey, McLean, Sylvia, Bate, Dunn, Newton. The potential is there to improve dramatically, but we need a coach who can get the best from Trapper, Bruce, Green etc, and hopefully extract another year or two from the likes of White, Yze and Robbo. Our best team still looks pretty good!

Mate, what are you on? The Bombers are half a game outside the 8 (2 games off third spot) with 4 rounds to play. Us and Richmond have won 4 and a half games between us! They have beaten both of last years Grand Finalists (in successive weeks) and the Crows (prelim finalists) twice this year! You are drawing an extremely long bow to suggest that Essendon's form is anywhere near as bad as ours or the Tigers!

What is it about Bluey Mckenna? Is it the red hair - a reincarnation of Norm? His record as coach of Claremont wasn't great, he missed the St Kilda job - Alan Richardson is the man at Collingwood who has fast-tracked the development of the younger players as the development coach. McKenna is grossly overrated by posters on this site. The Pies have not exactly achieved great things since he has been there. Missed finals in 04 and 05, lost in the first week last year and I'm betting they don't get much further than week one this year. Finalists on the strength of a gimme draw.

If the Lions don't make the finals thats 3 years for them too! Is Matthews losing his magic? Don't think so! It's cyclical. The aim is to make the cycle as short as possible. The Bombers are heading upwards again. They'll probably miss the finals but they are heading in the right direction, as are the lions. We are moving further away atm!

Sheeds has coached for 27 years. 20 of those seasons have been in a Natonal Competition where interstate sides have many advantages not enjoyed by the Victorian Clubs. He has won 4 premierships, been runner up on another 3 occasions, played in prelim finals in 1989, 1996 and 1999. His team has missed the finals only seven times (8 if you count this season). He has had only 3 seasons with a less than 50 percent win loss record. 2006 was not a great year for Essendon (3 and a half wins), but they have already won 9 this year and I'm betting they win at least 2 more. That is some improvement in 12 months. To belittle that record proves only that you have very little comprehension of how hard it is to succeed in the modern game. In the last 15 years, 10 premierships have been won by interstate sides. Of the 5 Victorian flags, 2 have been won by Sheeds. That says it all. Bring him to Melbourne!

I was not an advocate for dispensing with ND's services before the end of the season because I believe you only move somebody on when there is somone else better to replace them with. That person is now available. Appointing anyone other than Sheedy means appointing an untried, untested senior coach who needs to be broken in to the role. Sheeds would hit the ground running - there is not another person I can think of who knows more about the game than Sheedy. He practically invented the modern game. I don't believe a Ratten, McKenna, Bond etc would give us more over the next 2-3 years than Sheeds could. The other benefit would be the attraction to players of playing under Sheedy. At the U18 carnival a survey was undertaken as to who the players would most like to play under in the AFL. More than 60% said Sheedy! Sign him up as soon as the Bombers season is over. There are at least 3 people living in my house who will become MFC members next year if Sheeds is on board (they all follow the red and black). I think we could potentially up our membership by 5000 to 8000 in the first year of Sheeds.

Sheedy, daylight, Hardwick

A smart thing for the Club to do but Harris is right - Laidley won't be available! He is also right about the lack of spirit about the place. Sheedy will have a plan to work on that. I like Laidley but he is North through and through and not the sort of bloke to jump ship when things are beginning to move in the right direction for him. Since we have been out of finals contention I have been hoping the Roos can go all the way!

Yep, agree with all that. He is well aware of his place in history and is desperate for a 5th premiership as coach to put him ahead of Jeans, Barassi and Parkin. Also, Sheeds' dislike of Melbourne is well known and long standing. He was rejected by the Demons as a player after one training session as a young man and then went and dominated at Prahran before crossing to the Tigers ( after being refused a clearance). Something about being too slow etc etc. He would no doubt see the irony in being the saviour near the end of his career after being rejected at the start of it! I really believe he can make a massive difference to the Club - and he's right in saying that he will have quality assistant coaches working alongside him. We will have no trouble grooming a successor with Sheeds in the drivers seat.

I am now officially excited. My wife is a mad Bombers fan and is she sooking atm! I love it!